TechLifeMashup | Entrepreneurs, Social Media, and Technology

If you enjoy taking pictures to any degree, then you most likely heard of a little website called Flickr.  What has quickly become a household name now stands as the most popular place to store and share your pictures with family and friends.  Flickr not only provides a place for sharing photos, but it continues to create a growing community of active users around those photos.   This week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Stewart Butterfield, who founded the popular photo sharing & social networking platform and just how he did it. More »

Twitter has taken the social networking world by storm since it’s release about two years ago.  Not only do new users continue to flock to the micro-blogging site daily, but Twitter has become a household name much like Google or Facebook.  If you’re wondering how such a site has been able to become so successful in such a short amount of time, then we have the post for you.  This week in the spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Evan Williams, who founded the popular social networking platform known as Twitter. More »

When it comes to social networking, I don’t think anyone would argue with me calling Facebook the largest and most impressive social media platform currently available.  What started out as a simple college project has turned into a international phenomenon.  It might come as a surprise though to some to hear the the creator and owner of Facebook is only 25 and has already made the Forbes 500 Richest People list.  This week in our spotlight we take a look at entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg. More »

Standing out from the competition is very important when it comes to attracting visitors to your site and being successful on the internet.   In a sea of endless blogs and company websites, you really need to take the time distinguish yourself from everyone else or you’ll end up being just another face in a crowded place.   So how do you make your site stand out from the rest?  In one word: branding. More »

Looking to improve your productivity and get more done in less time?  Tired of the standard 9-5 workweek?  If so, then Tim has some advice for you.   This week in our ongoing entrepreneur spotlight series we take a look at Tim Ferriss, who wrote a book on productivity and escaping the daily 9-5 job.  Want to know how Tim went from being a unknown to a well established entrepreneur?  We’ll look at just how he did it and what he has been up to since the success of his book. More »

Dream of making it as a successful entrepreneur?  Looking for some success stories of fellow entrepreneurs who have turned their ideas into a full-time job?  Well, look no further as you have found the first post in what will be an ongoing series designed to highlight people who have done just that.  Each week we will highlight a different entrepreneur who recently made it big.  We’ll tell you who they are, how they did it, and offer some helpful tips so you can do it too!  This week  in our first post of the series, we will take a look at Kevin rose, who happens to be the mastermind behind the popular user-based news site digg.com. More »

In the back of our minds we all have that part of our brain that feeds our desire to make it big. Whether you have a small blog somewhere on the internet or a fast growing business, everyone at some point dreams of a life with more money. These thoughts seem to be much more frequent these days with all the buzz about booming start-ups and overnight success stories like Facebook or Digg. It still surprises me though how all these internet success stories have come about, and yet we don’t often get any interesting TV shows or specials revolving around internet life. Well, in my quest for some quality tech lifestyle entertainment I happened across a 1 season series of a show that anyone with an interest in the internet and entrepreneurship should definitely check out! More »

Do you have a great idea for a start-up company and lack only some cold hard cash to get it started? Well, you might be in luck because I found one possible solution that I thought was worth noting during my daily browsing for internet goodness. It’s a site called Y Combinator and the idea behind it is quite simple: reward the entrepreneurs with the best ideas the financial backing they need to make their dreams a reality.  Read on to see how your next idea could be the only thing stopping you from making it happen! More »

It was 9:30pm the other night and I was too tired to read like I usually do.  So I was flipping through the local TV stations for something (anything) to fall asleep to.  To my surprise, I struck gold and found an entire hour special on entrepreneurs who made it big with their ideas.  The special interviewed and documented the journey of four different upcoming entrepreneurs.  Some of you might be familiar with two of the people in the special: Tom from Tom Shoes (The guy who gives a pair of shoes away for every pair he sells) and Rick Bayless (founder of Frontera Foods).  Now what was special about this show was that it actually showed a lot of the nitty gritty behind the scenes work that goes into pursuing a business idea. Many of us (myself include) dream of starting our own business and seeing our great idea come to life.  The problem often times is how do I actually go about doing it?  Where do I find an investor?  How do I go about pitching my idea?  What are the actual first steps I need to do to make this happen?  Well, read on to find out about some helpful tools that should help answer these burning questions. More »

Yes, be your own boss or at least some of the time (to start anyways).  I came across this article over at GetRichSlowly.com the other day and really thought it made some good points about starting your own business.  What I liked about this article is that is discusses the benefit of opening a business on the side even if you don’t plan on leaving your job currently.  We often think of starting a business and as a result leaving our current job in order to do so.  This story points the important point that starting your own business can be done in addition to your current place of employment and not always as a replacement. More »